Polity by Rob Salmond

Ah but the spies get $300m .... all the better to see you with my dear ....

Interesting article in Oz about how Treasury forecasts have systematic errors. Does cover how the growth that does occur is often not available to the great majority of the population, and how it's often not related to anything happening in the country, but mostly it's about how those forecasts generally bias high. There was a better one that I can't find, but with a nice graph of forecast growth compounded vs actual growth, giving a pretty two sloping lines showing that if Treasury had been randomly wrong over time we'd have an economy two or three times the current size (or their estimates would have been more accurate, whatever).

I guess you get the 17% from 2.6% being 17% of 14%. So where does the other 83% go. I suspect a big chunk of it will go to population growth (i.e. new immigrants and new babies). In particular a large section will go to people currently aged between 14 and 18 entering the Labour force over the next 4 years. Also a big chunk will go to the government via an increased tax take due to the growing economy. You also mentioned some unemployed people entering the labour force but some will also go to new people entering the labour force through other means (such as a student leaving university) It will be interesting comparing the 17% figure to what the figures were in Labours budgets (under Micheal Cullen) and also a pie chart of exactly where all this GDP increase goes

To be damned honest about all this, dear Rob Salmond, you are trying the same as Andrew Little in Parliament today, to simply bang on about the same line as we have been getting for years from Labour.

My sad impression is though, that Labour has insufficient expertise and advice when it comes to deal with complex financial, fiscal and economic matters, like the Budget covers. Simply going on about the housing issue, social injustice, which are all real and valid topics, and otherwise simply trying to dismiss the Budget and the government as “not caring” and so, are emotive messages, they seem simplistic, unsophisticated and are thus ineffective to deliver the kind of OPPOSITION this country deserves and we desperately need.

It is not all bad what is in the budget, so Labour will have to get real on this, they can continue to highlight the failings in housing, long term economic and social policy, but to only just be absolutely negative and hostile and angry will NOT convince the very voters they try to convince, who are the ones “in the middle” of society.

Of course the growth we are promised is not going to be shared, but that has been so for the last two to three decades, what the hell did Labour do about it in 1999 to 2008, apart from bringing in Working for Families and so?

What I read and hear at the moment rather looks like opposition incompetence. By the way, the ONLY speech I found worthy giving credit to this afternoon was the one by Winston Peters, in my humble opinion. He was presenting the issues rather well, while Andrew ranted on and on about the same things, and while even James Shaw was not quite getting the message across, I felt.

Correct me if I am wrong, but that is my view of things.

Scoop have an interesting news release on the budget, which seems more balanced:

http://auckland.scoop.co.nz/2016/05/budget-2016-population-driven-gdp-growth/

Around half the growth expected would be shared further via population growth, which expected expected to be around 6.9%. for the period
So the half remaining growth: the wage share of GDP is but how much? This would not come out to around 2.6%? Or am I confusing Apples and Oranges, which I am highly likely to do?

Hmm. Keith Ng's visualisation shows a decrease in the MoH's national disability budget of $25m (or 2.2%). Thank goodness the level of need is going down steadily as boomers swell the ranks of the disabled elderly. Oh, hang on ..

So Bill English actually said on Checkpoint, "we have got the money" to put into affordable housing, and then tries to blame planners and Auckland and other Councils, hear after 5.00 and particularly 5.40 in this audio recording:

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/201802215/finance-minister-budget-invests-in-innovation-and-social-issues

If that is so then, Minister, WHY do you then not launch a major national and government funded social housing construction program under the umbrella of Housing NZ???

Do I have tomatoes in my ears and brain, or what is going on with this hypocritical, lying and totally commercially focused government, that only favours their developer mates to get things done?

Even under the legacy rules and plans, the government could do more, but chooses not to. What were the Special Housing Areas there for then, which are used also by land bankers who now black mail the government and Council, to get even more liberal development rules, likely to result in even more poor building and a new scandal? New Zealand is ruled by incompetent or otherwise many vested interest holding people holding this society to ransom.

I fear that due to the often lack of vocal opposition and their weakness, the disabled are considered as dispensable, as not worthy of much attention, or otherwise only deserving patronising statements about "care" costing the tax payer "damned too much". That is what I get from this government, in impression.

If that is so then, Minister, WHY do you then not launch a major national and government funded social housing construction program under the umbrella of Housing NZ?

Ideology that pays no attention to evidence. Can't argue with it, only overturn it by changing the government.

Do I have tomatoes in my ears and brain, or what is going on with this hypocritical, lying and totally commercially focused government, that only favours their developer mates to get things done?

John Key's National government does not have an agenda, but they do have a kaupapa : to transfer public wealth to the (self-evidently deserving) wealthy.

That's what they do, unless they have to capitulate to basic social programmes because their endless polling shows they have to (e.g. WFF, student loans) in order to stay in power.

National always suck at helping, always. As a catholic i hoped english may have listened to our pope.
Pakeha males love nats. It's a white boy thing. Pakeha boys are right wing to a majority. Pakeha are divided. 55 % nats forever, 45 no way.

Rob, if this is representative of the advice you give Labour, one can see why they are in so much trouble.
You are not comparing like with like, you are comparing increases in wages with increases in GDP as if they are the same thing, which they are not. Wages are wages and GDP is an economic aggregate measure. A real apple and oranges comparison mistake.

Wages are wages and GDP is

.....
Yeah what the fuck is GDP James.....?
I want to know when these fucking pricks will get their fucking expensive acronym loaded loafers off the neck of wage earners. Globalization is a fucking crock. Yeah the planet looks like a globe thats about all. These arsewipes are using this world too fill their pockets dont worry about the consequences, or cost to anyone who isnt in their fucking club.GDP fuck off!

GDP stands for "Gross Domestic Product", not "Global" anything. But yeah, it's not a good proxy for anything to do with individual wage earners.

Andin, well my goodness, aren't you a happy chappy!! I thought everyone knew what GDP stood for, but apparently there is at least one grumpy leftie out there who doesn't know and couldn't manage to do a quick Google search before he or she vented their spleen all over the computer screen!! As linger pointed out, GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product, a measure of the finished goods and services produced in an economy in a given period. Not appropriate for a comparison with wages.
You also might like to know that average hourly wages in NZ are up quite substantially since 2008, from about $22/hr to $29.48/hr, so I don't know that you can say that any acronym loaded loafers have been on any wage earner necks. Yes house prices have gone crazy, but that is because the enviro leftie planners in city councils decided, in their brilliance, that in a country that is 1% built up, that NZers have to live on top of each other and can't expand a bit.
If you don't like globalisation, what do you propose NZ does with all its milk, meat, wool, kiwifruit, apples, manufactured goods software etc that NZ exports? Shall we stack it up outside your house/flat? Might get a bit smelly after a while, don't you think? And we shall tell all those 3 or 4 million tourists that they cant come and visit NZ as we don't like globalization?

Interesting, James, that your post is just as doctrinaire as the post you are replying to - and you pepper your reply with non answers. How have the lowest wages changed since 2008? The average is meaningless. Did New Zealand live by exporting before globalisation? Have other countries opened their markets to our products, like we have opened ours, to theirs? Prove that the planners in city councils are lefties.

Smug prick! and you cant recognize a rhetorical question when its posed.
I dont need fruit stacked out side my door, the stench coming off the likes of you is enough.

average hourly wages in NZ

...
(there we go hiding behind averages again) Have only risen because of the obscene increases given to "CEO"s

Hi Andin,
That's a fair pint, I should have used median wages. Here's a link to median wages from 1997 to 2014 which shows median wages growing over that time horizon, except for a period after the GFC, 2008 to 2010. So your belief that average wages have only risen due to obscene CEO wages increases is not correct.
http://bit.ly/1snN8q0

John Farrell,
See my post to linger for a graph of NZ median wages increases over time.
NZ has been living off globalization since it began exporting frozen meat in 1882. Earlier if you consider whale and seal hunting.
Both Cato and Heritage develop indexes of human and economic freedom that show a strong correlation between economic and human freedom and per capita incomes. So those countries like NZ that have opened their markets to trade have higher incomes, and the least free, like Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe and now Venezuela are doing terribly.
Economically speaking, what works and what doesn't work has never been more obvious.

You haven't answered my points, and I doubt that Cato or Heritage have unbiased information on economic systems, since they both exist to promote libertarian and rightwing solutions. Give us information from an independent source.

So was that graph nominal or cost of living adjusted?

Household Economic Survey:

How many people are answering "Not enough" to "Adequacy of income to meet everyday needs"

2013 Top 2 quintiles median earning households: 4%
2013 Lower 2 quintiles median earning households: 24%

2007 Top 2 quintiles median earning households: 7%
2007 Lower 2 quintiles median earning households: 25%

The median wage is growing, but the cost of living is also growing. And the growth seems to be of no benefit to the bottom 40% of households by household income.

Median wages are better than mean wages (as the median is less affected by extreme outliers at the high end), but still don’t allow a perfect comparison for changes over time, as the figures only include those who have a wage: increased unemployment tends to remove individuals from the bottom of the distribution, so increasing the apparent median for wages.

Median income from all sources (adjusted for cost of living) might be better.